


On Murderers and Soulmates

by nitrogen_and_crisis



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Eskel (The Witcher), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst and Porn, Comfort/Angst, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Letho, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Probably ooc, Romantic Soulmates, The Author Regrets Everything, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, no beta we die like my self-respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27003523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nitrogen_and_crisis/pseuds/nitrogen_and_crisis
Summary: Letho is about to go into heat when he meets his soulmate for the first time, something which he is in no way ready for.Featuring a heavy dose of self-hatred on Letho's part.
Relationships: Eskel/Letho z Gulety | Letho of Gulet
Comments: 29
Kudos: 109





	On Murderers and Soulmates

**Author's Note:**

> Go to college, they said. It'll be fun, they said.
> 
> Instead I made some friends and they fucking pressured me into writing this with the promise of a dramatic reading and then it hit like 3000 words. I have to live with the knowledge that *this*, my first attempt at smut since middle school, is my longest one-shot thus far. Please end my life.

Letho knows he’s about to go into heat. He’s known for a couple days now, the beginnings of it curling around in his stomach as he sets up camp, far away from any road or civilization. His heat won’t hit fully for another day or two, but the last thing he needs is for some alpha to stumble across him while he’s so defenseless. It had happened once, shortly after he’d set out on the path for the first time, and he wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.

There were witcher potions that helped with this sort of thing, but he couldn’t block his heat every time. If he doesn’t take a break every so often, the potions will fuck up his hormones in fun, new, dangerous ways. Letho had learned that the hard way too.

As he forms the sign for igni, intent on lighting his campfire, the words emblazoned on Letho’s right arm that make up his soul mark tingle suddenly and he flinches, almost setting himself on fire instead. Some people claim that when your soul mark tingles, it means your soulmate is thinking about you. Others have said it means that you’re getting close to meeting them. Letho really hopes it’s not the latter. The last thing he needs to deal with right now is some poor witcher who absolutely does not want to be soulmates with the infamous Kingslayer.

He knows his soulmate is a witcher from the words on his arm, which read “Didn’t expect to run into another witcher all the way out here.” They’re supposed to be the first words his soulmate will speak to him.

“As well as the last,” Letho thinks bitterly. He knows his reputation, and he knows other witchers know it too. If that fails to put them off, Letho has no doubts his size will. No one wants a large omega. He’s too big and too rough for an omega. Omegas are supposed to be small and dainty. They’re supposed to need to be taken care of by their alpha. He isn’t supposed to be able to crush their skull with one hand.

When it comes down to it, Letho is a bad person. He’s a bad person and a bad omega and no one would want him as their soulmate.

Letho is shaken from his musings by the sound of heavy footsteps approaching his camp and he curses internally. He’d set up his camp all the way out here so that he could spend his next days miserable, desperately horny, and alone with his own fingers up his ass as he tries to fill the void inside him, but when has the universe ever respected his plans?

“Didn’t expect to run into another witcher all the way out here,” a man’s voice says, and Letho whips around with surprising speed for his size.

The man has a rough voice that would be harsh if he wasn’t so soft-spoken. The first thing that Letho notices about him other than his voice are the harsh scars carving into the right side of his face. Not a lot of witchers have scarring that bad and the wolf medallion narrows that pool down to one. This is Geralt’s brother, Eskel.

An involuntary and slightly strangled “fuck” makes its way out before Letho can stop it, and he watches Eskel’s eyes widen slightly as he glances down at his left wrist and then back at Letho.

Eskel is his soulmate then, that confirms it. So now he has to deal with his heat and this whole soulmate business. Fuck.

“No. No fucking way. Fuck this.” It comes out with more venom than Letho intended. Eskel doesn’t even flinch, but his scent sours, tinged with sadness, and that — that wasn’t supposed to happen. He didn’t want to break Eskel’s heart, just spare them both Eskel having to reject him.

“Right, well…” Eskel gestures awkwardly away from the camp, stepping slightly backwards as he does so, and Letho’s mouth moves without his permission.

“Jerky?” he offers, which is hands down the worst thing he could have said. He just rejected the man who’s supposed to be his soulmate and now he’s offering him jerky as an olive branch. Honestly, Letho thinks, this might be a new low.

To his surprise, Eskel wordlessly accepts the offered jerky. He stands awkwardly near Letho’s campfire, chewing slowly on the jerky while a hand wanders up to scratch the scars on his face.

“Your horse. It’s getting away,” Letho points out, shifting uncomfortably.

Scorpion is indeed roaming a little ways away, grazing on some longer grass with a goat that probably also belongs to Eskel, given that there hadn’t been one around before.

“Is that your goat?” Letho asks as Eskel ties Scorpion to a nearby tree. 

“Yeah. Her name’s Lil’ Bleater.”

It’s adorable, and there has got to be some sort of irony in that. The most laid-back witcher who gives cute names to goats gets assigned a fucking murderer as his soulmate.

“Are you gonna at least tell me why?” Eskel asks, startling Letho out of his musings.

“Why what?”

“Doubt it’s that I’m a witcher, ‘cause you’re one too, so…?

Letho hesitates for a moment. He knows what Eskel is asking, but he doesn’t know where to begin with that one. Eskel must take his silence as a refusal to answer the question, because he starts talking again.

“If it’s the scars you can just say so. I know I’m not exactly what you’d consider handsome.”

Another pause where Letho struggles with his tongue and his mind.

“I know it’s stupid,” Eskel continues, a little shakily, “but I was kind of hoping this soulmate thing might pan out for me.” He shifts uncertainly, and the sour notes in his scent increase.

“That’s not— It’s not the scars.” Letho lets out a huffed breath. Why is this so hard? “Why do you want the Kingslayer for a soulmate anyways? Wouldn’t you rather try your luck with someone else?” he sneers.

“You did it to try and get your home back. I’d probably do the same, can’t hold it against you.” It’s said so understandingly with a little lopsided smile, and Letho doesn’t know what to do. Of course Eskel would be the one witcher to both have heard his side of the story and be understanding about the whole thing.

“Okay with having an omega bigger than you then?” Letho leers. “Someone who could overpower you whenever they want?”

“I think you’re underestimating me a little bit there. ‘Sides, I don’t particularly mind the height difference.” The smile is back, and Eskel is almost certainly flirting with him now.

Almost on cue, the heat coiling it’s way around Letho’s belly spikes without warning, and a small groan slips out before he can stop it.

“You’re going to start your heat soon.” It’s a statement, not a question, and all Letho can do is jerk his head in agreement.

“You were planning on suffering through it alone all the way out here?”

“Not like I’ve got another option.” Letho forces out a laugh. “I told you, no one wants an omega bigger than them. We’re supposed to be small, dainty, in need of protection.” He sounds bitter and he knows it, but sometimes he wishes he’d been born better suited to his secondary sex. He’s earned his lot in life though, so it’s not like he can really complain. If there’s one thing he doesn’t deserve, it’s an easy heat with a loving alpha to take care of him. Eskel, apparently, didn’t get that memo.

“At least tell me you have toys with you out here.”

Letho doesn’t respond, and Eskel takes his silence as an answer.

“Look, you don’t have to say yes, but I can help you out, if you want. It doesn’t have to be as soulmates. We can deal with that after your heat.”

A large part of Letho longs to accept the help Eskel is offering. He hasn’t been taken by an alpha in ages, hasn’t had anyone care about or for him in ages. He also doesn’t want to have to smell Eskel’s sour sadness again. Eskel, who names animals cute things and doesn’t mind everything that Letho is — a murderer and an overlarge omega.

Letho tries to remind himself of every reason why saying yes to Eskel is a bad idea, but the heat rolls in his stomach once more and the overwhelming desire to not spend the next week in misery overrules, and he finds himself agreeing. The smile he gets in return kind of makes it worth it though.

The next morning dawns slow and quiet, waking Letho with the sun. The first thing he processes is how damn hot he feels. The next thing he registers is how achingly hard he is, and his heat has started, hasn’t it?

“‘Morning,” Eskel says from his spot by the burnt out fire, quietly eating some nuts. “Still want my help?”

The inquiry is both teasing and gentle; there’s no pressure on Letho to say yes or no, and somehow that just makes it worse. Because he knows he should say no, but his thoughts are becoming muddled and he’s suffocating in his clothes and it’s getting really hard to remember why this is a bad idea.

“Please,” Letho rasps out, nodding desperately. Then he’s desperately trying to wiggle out of his clothes, but his fingers aren’t dexterous enough to undo the ties on his pants and he thinks Eskel might be laughing at him, just a little bit.

“Let me help with that,” Eskel says, unlacing Letho’s pants with ease, and yeah, he’s definitely being laughed at.

“Shut up,” Letho mutters, ducking his head in embarrassment. He shucks his pants and braies as fast as he can, but the cool morning air on his feverish skin brings to his attention exactly how embarrassingly slick he is down below.

Suddenly keenly aware of his audience, Letho curls his legs up to try and shield himself. He doesn’t get very far before calloused hands come up to rest on his torso. One gently runs up and down his spine while the other one traces its way down his chest and towards his cock, pausing briefly to toy with his nipples.

A couple whimpers that Letho can’t suppress slip out and he shifts to hide his face in Eskel’s bare shoulder. Letho isn’t certain when Eskel had the time to undress, but the skin to skin contact feels amazing, so Letho isn’t going to complain.

He all-out moans when the hand traveling down his front wraps around his cock, pumping it slowly. Eskel lets out a low chuckle as Letho tries to burrow further into his shoulder groaning at the contact. It feels good, but it’s not enough. He feels so empty it hurts.

“Please,” Letho whimpers into Eskel’s shoulder. 

His mind is too hazy to form a complete sentence, but Eskel seems to understand him anyways. The hand that had previously been stroking Letho’s back makes one more pass up to rub his bald head affectionately, before traveling back down his spine and then continuing lower.

For a moment, while Eskel uses some of the slick leaking from Letho’s hole to lube up his fingers, Letho panics. He shouldn’t be doing this. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s a murderer, a monster, a bad person. He almost tells Eskel to stop, but then a large finger pushes its way inside of him and Letho forgets how to think.

Letting out a broken moan, Letho presses back onto Eskel’s finger, trying to force it as deep as possible. He needs more. He needs Eskel’s cock inside of him now. He wants to be knotted, filled, bred. It doesn’t matter that witchers are sterile, he wants Eskel to try anyway.

Eskel shushes him, pressing a brief kiss to Letho’s temple, before slowly starting to move his finger, carefully working Letho open. His other hand is still loosely stroking Letho’s cock, and the way Eskel’s arms are positioned feels almost like a protective hug. It’s all too much and not not enough and not enough at once, and Letho presses back into Eskel, trying to get away and get closer simultaneously.

Eskel just lets out a soft humming noise and continues working him open, adding fingers as he goes. He takes more time than Letho thinks is strictly necessary, and by the time Eskel is finished, Letho is openly begging for his cock.

“Shh, you’ll get it in a second,” Eskel murmurs to him, and then Letho is on his back and empty again. He doesn’t want to be empty. 

Before Letho can string together the words he needs to beg Eskel for his fingers, cock, anything, Eskel is over him, the head of his cock slowly pressing into Letho’s ass.

“Fuck, you’re— So wet—” Eskel pants out. Whatever self-restraint he was previously exercising vanishes in the blink of an eye and he drives his hips forward, forcing himself deep into Letho and startling a moan out of him.

The rhythm Eskel sets is slow, almost tender. It feels more like he’s making love to Letho rather than just fucking him. Something in Letho preens at that, but the small part of his rational mind that’s still functioning reminds him that he’s a murderer, not a blushing maiden. The only way he’s meant to be taken is fast and rough. No one should be making love to the kingslayer.

“F-fuck— Go faster dammit.” It sounds whiny and petulant, but he’s a lot too out of it to care at the moment.

Wordlessly, Eskel complies, taking advantage of the extra speed and strength granted to him by the witcher mutagens to set a ruthless pace, slamming into Letho’s prostate with each thrust. Letho whimpers and whines and loses himself in it.

Eskel hesitates briefly when his knot begins to swell, but Letho growls at him and he keeps going. A hand comes down to wrap around Letho’s leaking cock as Eskel thrusts into him one, two, three more times before cumming, his knot swelling to lock them together. Letho feels so wonderfully full, and it only takes a couple more strokes for his own orgasm to overtake him. He tenses as his cock spills messily all over his stomach and Eskel’s fist, then all the tension bleeds out of his body and Letho collapses back onto the bedroom beneath him, exhausted for the moment. He can still feel Eskel’s knot inside of him — his cock shifting slightly with every movement either one of them makes, but he finds it oddly comforting.

Letho gets a couple more minutes of peace before his heat comes creeping back in, making him push closer to Eskel, his cock twitching back to life.

It’s evening when Letho wakes up after the last day of his heat. Surprisingly, Eskel is still there, tending to a fire over which dinner seems to be cooking. The sight has something warm coming to rest in Letho’s chest, even as it tightens uncomfortably.

“Haven’t taken off yet?” Letho asks a little too shakily, voice betraying him again.

“Wasn’t just going to leave you passed out in the middle of the woods.” Eskel offers him one of his small, lopsided smiles and  _ fuck _ , Letho might be getting attached.

“Well, I’m awake now, so you can go.”

It hangs awkwardly in the air, and it’s only in the ensuing silence that Letho properly processes the fact that he’s on a bedroll that isn’t his, covered in a blanket that isn’t his, and that he’s not coated in a layer of sweat and cum like he probably should be. The air smells of Eskel’s sadness again, and doesn’t that just make it worse? Eskel, who was probably tired too, stayed up to bathe Letho and make sure he had somewhere clean to sleep, and Letho repays him by lashing out again.

Then Eskel is standing up, making for his bags, and Letho’s stomach drops straight out of his body. It’s fine, he tries to tell himself. He doesn’t need a soulmate, and he sure as hell doesn’t deserve one. Eskel can go and find himself someone better, and they’ll both be better off.

A shirt hits him square in the face.

From the smell of it, it’s one of Eskel’s, but that doesn’t really explain why he threw it.

“Come on, we’re not having this conversation with you naked.”

Letho puts on the shirt without really thinking about it. The shirt is slightly too small, but he barely registers it, too focused on trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

“You gotta at least tell me why,” Eskel says, sitting down much closer to Letho than he’d been previously.

“Didn’t we already have this conversation?” Letho asks flatly.

“You never actually answered the first time.” It’s said mildly, but Eskel catches his gaze and holds it, staring him down. Letho holds his gaze for as long as he can, but the guilt from when they first met decides this is the time to rear its head, twisting around his insides until he has to drop his eyes.

“So?”

“Why are you so fucking insistent about this? You can’t tell me you really want me for a soulmate, for a mate?” It sounds more pathetic than Letho would like.

Eskel doesn’t respond. He just sits and waits.

“I killed innocent people for a lie. I don’t deserve a soulmate,” Letho finally says quietly, ducking his head. He’s suddenly glad Eskel had the foresight to give him a shirt.

“Deserving of not, you’ve still got one. Rejecting me won’t change that,” Eskel says, reaching out gently raising Letho’s head to meet his gaze again. “So how about we travel together for a little while. Give it a trial period?”

And Letho doesn’t understand why Eskel is insisting upon giving this a go, he should be running in the opposite direction, should be rejecting Letho, should have rejected him before Letho got the chance, but fuck does he wants what Eskel is offering him.

“Alright. For a bit.”

**Author's Note:**

> One of these days I'll write something proper for this ship. One of these days...


End file.
